This year, we started our summer garden in mid-May.  We planted heirloom tomatoes, peppers, chilies, herbs, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, strawberries and herbs (lemongrass, parsley, cilantro, basil, and tarragon).  We have had some outstanding successes so far and some misses.  First, our successes.

We have successfully grown 17 heirloom tomato plants (11 different varieties).  The plants themselves are between seven to eight feet in height.  We have started harvesting tomatoes from the Green Zebra, Green Grape, Japanese, Cherokee  and Siberian plants.  By the end of the summer, we expect to have harvested hundreds of tomatoes.  In a future post, I’ll write about how we grew the tomatoes (and may explain why ours are producing more fruit and growing taller than our neighbors).

Other successes so far include lemon cucumbers, chilies, bell peppers and eggplant.  The herbs are all doing well.   Noteworthy is the lemongrass.  It’s about 2.5 feet tall.  We have  a zucchini coming and we have harvested strawberries.  These however are not as prolific as the other plants.

Our onions (we planted 180) were very disappointing.  Most only grew to about an inch in diameter and then the green stalk fell over.  Also, our carrots (planted in the fall like the onions) did not grow well.  A neighbor clued us in that the soil may not be sandy enough.  I pulled the onions out recently and planted some new vegetables.  We planted snow pea and bean seeds.  Within a week, they sprouted from the ground.  We have been able to use the onions in cooking and are quite tasty.  I removed the carrots about six weeks ago.  I planted micro greens in their place and they are doing quite well.

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